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Essay / Jacquie Red Feather and the Aftermath of Adversity There
Table of ContentsIntroductionThe Burden of Tony LonemanJacquie Red Feather: Fighting AlcoholismThe Struggles of the Dene OxendeneConclusionWorks CitedIntroductionRegardless of life's adversity, human resilience prevails always. There There, a political history novel, written by Tommy Orange, is a well-paced, multi-generational tale of self-identity, loss, trust, and excellent writing that blends sadness with the historical context of a country and of its inhabitants. There There contains twelve different characters, each has a different story that leads to the journey of the famous Oakland Powwow in which the indigenous community comes together to celebrate their culture. Jacquie Red Feather is finally sober after dealing with alcohol problems. She tries to rediscover her past life. Dene Oxendene's uncle dies and comes to work at the powwow. Tony Loneman, born with fetal alcohol syndrome, faces many social problems and struggles to find his own identity. These three characters have adversity in common. Although characters like Tony Loneman, Jacquie Red-Feather, and Dene Oxendene experience misfortunes such as drug addiction, mental illness, broken families, and violence, they eventually take steps to cope, even if their actions do not are not effective. Say no to plagiarism. . Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get the original essay The Burden of Tony Loneman One of the many characters in this novel who faces adversity is Tony Loneman. Tony Loneman was born with fetal alcohol syndrome because his mother was an alcoholic. He calls his SAF “Drôme”. Tony has been alone and excluded his whole life because of his unique face, it's even in his name LONEman. He even considers himself a beast. Tony also struggles with his cultural and personal identity because “the Drôme” gets in the way. In the novel, Tony explains “the Drôme” by saying: “people look at me then look away when they see it, I see them see me. This is also Drôme. My power and my curse. Drome is my mother and why she drank is the way the story lands on a face, and all the ways I've done it so far despite the way she's fucked me over since the day when I found him there on TV, looking at me like a fucking bad guy” (Orange 16). In this quote we see Tony explaining how his FAS has affected his life. Tony hates his FAS and thinks it's ruining his life, which it is, especially what led to his syndrome. Reaching out to a mother's illness can be difficult. Her mother knew the consequences, but she became an alcoholic anyway. As Tony does not have a parental figure, his grandmother Maxine takes care of him. Tony has been selling weed since he was thirteen. He gives most of the money he makes to Maxine. To deal with all this adversity, Tony decides to take crazy measures. Due to his background in selling drugs, he eventually meets Octavio and becomes part of his plan to rob the Big Oakland Powwow. This action suggests that Tony loves his culture but also feels disconnected from it, so stealing the Powwow is a way for Tony to retaliate for not being accepted. Before the powwow, Octavio asks Tony to buy some balls and come wear his regalia so he blends in. At this point in the novel, Tony feels very alone and as he is dying, at the end, after being shot during the robbery, he feels like he has been liberated.Jacquie Red Feather: Battle with AlcoholismUn Another character in this novel who faced life-changing challenges is Jacquie Red-Feather. Like Tony Loneman,, 2018.